Obama visit draws fracking, SAFE Act protesters to Cooperstown

Cooperstown, the small Otsego County village of 1,800, is used to dealing with big crowds.

Each year, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's induction weekend draws tens of thousands of visitors travel to the village in New York's Leatherstocking Region, honoring the sport's legends as they get a plaque in the famed Hall of Fame Gallery.

President Barack Obama's visit to the Hall of Fame has drawn hundreds of curious onlookers, tourists and protesters to the village, with the most visible presence from at least 100 anti-fracking activists stationed just across the street from the Main Street museum.

For the fracking opponents, the location of Obama's speech is symbolic. The town of Middlefield -- which includes the village of Cooperstown -- is locked in a courtroom battle over whether towns have the right to ban shale-gas drilling. The case will be argued in front of the state's top court at the beginning of June.

Obama is a supporter of high-volume hydrofracking for natural gas, while New York hasn't yet decided whether to allow it within the state. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, meanwhile, came out against fracking in 2011.

"Middlefield and Cooperstown, the village inside of Middlefield, really symbolizes the community-based, local movement -- the right to decide the future of your community," said Helen Slottje, an Ithaca-based attorney that has defended Middlefield's fracking ban. "Here's a community that is really invested and figured out what it wants it's community to look like and future to look like, and I think they have the right to make that decision."

Obama's not the only one who is drawing protesters, however. About a dozen people around 12:30 p.m. were protesting New York's SAFE Act, a series of strict gun-control laws passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year.

Cuomo, who was on Long Island for the state Democratic convention this morning, is expected to be in Cooperstown this afternoon.

"On the local level here, there's nothing more heinous than the SAFE Act," said Al Belardinelli, a Binghamton resident. "It was wrongfully enacted, wrongfully written. They didn't read it. Doesn't matter whether you're for or against gun control, you should be mad as hell for the way that it was passed. It's representative of a corrupt government."